universe

The Rosendale Theater will host, "The Effects of Gravity," on July 1 at 8 p.m. The event features astrophysicist Dr. Luke Keller, poet and storyteller David Gonzalez, and guitarist-composer- Álvaro Domene.

The Big Dipper is so recognizable, it's been an old friend to most of us since childhood. Its shape is mutating and will appear different in just a few thousand years -- but it hasn't changed a bit since we were kids.These nights, the Dipper is highest in the sky and hovers almost overhead in the north. The Big Dipper floats forlornly in a dark and desolate region of the sky, far from the Milky Way. Hence, the Dipper guides our eyes away from own galaxy and toward the emptiness of the rest of the universe.

As Earth Day approaches we turn our attention to the seas. Hear about different species’ adaptation to water and how our ancestors were stranded during a period of rising sea levels.

This is the year's best chance to see Mercury. There seems to be a small obsession with the solitary orange star that makes its way into the constellation Aries, and how its polar regions remain in eternal darkness.

The world adores the Full Moon. Poetry has always linked it to love. The fact that it’s one of Nature’s few perfectly round objects connects it with many cultures’ ancient beliefs that the circle was the perfect geometric shape, since it has no beginning or end. This week: the Moon.

Get ready for the spring equinox! Tune in to hear how sunlight grows at its maximum possible rate this week and what an equinox actually is.

To the ancient Greeks the sky was crammed with mythological figures. Few resembled the people or animals they were supposed to portray. But the Greeks were gifted essay-test-takers who could fill in the blanks with the best of them, and they knew observers could always recognize a star’s brilliance. So a man named Hipparchus who lived on Rhodes devised a scheme for sorting out star brightness. Tune in to hear how his system, still in use today, assigned each star one of six different magnitudes.

It’s a half century since James Lovelock originated the Gaia Hypothesis – which says that our planet’s biosphere is a single intelligent entity that self-regulates conditions for the mutual benefit of all. Hear how physicists have been heading down this path for a long time and about the alternative: The universe was created from nothing.

Tune in to hear how the year’s finest conjunction is happening. You don’t need a telescope, a star chart, or even need to know a single star or constellation. Two of the brightest objects in the sky will move closer and closer together, a sight you don’t want to miss.

The third-most-common gas we breathe is Argon. Argon, the gas inside the round, hot light bulbs that used to be everywhere, was discovered by a Scot, William Ramsay, who eventually won the Nobel Prize for his work with gases. Tune in to hear what else Ramsay has discovered and its influence on shopping.